Talk to me about flooring!

[Shortandsweet96]

Myself (22) and DP (31) bought a house together Feb last year. At the moment we have lino downstairs in the kitchen and living room, and carpeted stairs, landing and both bedrooms.

Now, I am absolutely clueless about flooring as a whole. I'm pretty sure I want the kitchen tiled, possibly slate tiles?

I want to carpet the living room and red-carpet the stairs, landing and bedrooms.

What type of carpet is good but not overly expensive? Any advice on colours or materials? We have a small dog and a cat so white/cream is out of the question.

The living room has two patio doors that leads out into the garden and our to where I park my car, so we often use these doors to come in and out, so would i be mad to carpet the living room incase of treading things in from outside.. even with an outside mat?!

Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. Inwillnalso try to upload a couple of photos of our kitchen and living room for colour schemes!

Warning: my living room is very grey!

A weird panorama of the living room..
My DP is one that doesnt car much for decorating, so I'm doing all of it myself so I'm slowly but surely adding bits and pieces to make our house nicer.

Sorry but I just want to say you probably don’t have Lino, you probabiy have vinyl sheet
I always say that on these threads and it’s not to be pedantic, it’s because I would hate anyone to buy Lino when they want vinyl
Lino gets used like Hoover for vacuum cleaner but it’s a very different thing to vinyl sheet and much harder to fit and of cases when people say Lino they mean vinyl.
Anyway OP, go for vinyl sheet, planks or tiles. You can get ones that look like slate but are softer, cheaper, warmer and easier to fit.
For carpet look at 80/20 wool vinyl mix as a starting point. Loop pile is more hard wearing then cut pile but usually not as soft and if you have pets they can catch their claws in loops and damage them. At small pattern like a fleck is better than plain to hide marks.
We have no carpet at all apart from the Stairs due to the mucky dog but also because DH is from somewhere that carpets aren’t used much and he thinks they are mucky. But it’s down to preference

After looking up the different on Google images, you are correct. We have giant sheets of foam that look like floor lol.

Thank you for the advice, we definitely dont want vinyl flooring again, the dog had managed to tear it up and destroy it so I think were pretty set on tiles, I'm worried he will tear up a new carpet though!

Have you though of laminate flooring?

In the living room you could widen it by a large rug

The kitchen will be cold with a slate floor

Have a look at Kardene or Amtico for longer lasting expensive limo type flooring

@greentulips I have thought about laminate, but it's quite slippery compared to a matte slate tile. I dont know why but I've never really been keen on laminate. I may look into it though as it seems tile might be regrettable.

The Kardene is £24 a square meter and feels rough like natural wood and it’s difficult to tell it’s not a solid floor

More expensive laminate is also rough so it feels natural rather than smooth and shiney

A dog is very unlikely to be able to damage vinyl tiles like Karndean (or a cheaper alternative)

I really wouldn’t have a tiled floor in the kitchen. Cold underfoot unless you have underfloor heating, needs regular mopping otherwise any dust seems to just lie on the surface. Plus if you drop anything on it whatever you drop is likely to smash. Karndean or Amtico or similar is much more forgiving. I have 3 cats that hoon round and apart from a couple of very small scratches they haven’t trashed it yet. If you do go for vinyl make sure you get it fitted by a Karndean or Amticoapprovedfitter otherwise any warranty will be invalid.

If you find a good local fitter they should be able to help you with your choice
My fitter gets me an Amtico/Karndean copy for less than £15 m2. I know it’s the same quality as I worked for a huge international floor manufacturer for several years ( hence my Lino comments on my earlier post)

Karndean seems to be where the suggestions are heading, I've taken a look at the website and I am definitely impressed and will be looking into it!

Buy carpet online and get a local fitter to fit it. We bought invictus Perseus carpet from a shop for our lounge and loved it. Then found it online for half the price as was the fitting

Should say. We got 4 bedrooms and stairs fitted with the carpet we bought online. Was something like 23.99pm from shop and 11.99 pm online for exactly the same carpet